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MACAULAY 



AN ESSAY 



JOHN MORLEY 

h 



WITH NOTES BY W. T. BREWSTER, A.M. 



We&3 gorfe 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1898 

All rights reserved 



I/- 



2nd copy; 
1898. 







30609 



Copyright, 1898, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



•li^'v^ 



Ill 
SoJjn Jlorleg 

Born 1838 

MACAULAY 

[Mr. Morley's essay appeared in the April number of the 
Fortnightly Review for 1876. It was afterwards printed as one 
of a volume of essays, and is now to be found, with the omission 
of one paragraph, in Volume I. of the Critical Miscellanies^ 
published by Messrs. Macmillan and Company, from which the 
text is here taken. As the author says in the opening paragraph, 
the essay was written in anticipation of the appearance of the 
Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay.'\ 

I. ** After glancing my eye over the design and 
order of a new book," says Gibbon, ** I suspended 
the perusal till I had finished the task of self- 
examination, till I had revolved in a solitary walk 
all that I knew or believed or had thought on the 5 
subject of the whole work or of some particular 
chapter ; I was then qualified to discern how much 
the author added to my original stock ; and if I 
was sometimes satisfied by the agreement, I was 
sometimes warned by the opposition of our ideas." 10 
It is also told of Strafford that before reading any 
book for the first time, he would call for a sheet 
of paper, and then proceed to write down upon it 
F 65 



66 John Morley 

some sketch of the ideas that he already had upon 
the subject of the book, and of the questions that 
he expected to find answered. No one who has 
been at the pains to try the experiment, will doubt 

5 the usefulness of this practice : it gives to our 
acquisitions from books clearness and reality, a 
right place and an independent shape. At this 
moment we are all looking for the biography of 
an illustrious man of letters,^ written by a near 

lo kinsman, who is himself naturally endowed with 
keen literary interests, and who has invigorated 
his academic cultivation by practical engagement in 
considerable affairs of public business. Before tak- 
ing up Mr. Trevelyan's two volumes, it is perhaps 

15 worth while, on Strafford's plan, to ask ourselves 
shortly what kind of significance or value belongs 
to Lord Macaulay's achievements, and to what 
place he has a claim among the forces of English 
literature. It is seventeen years since he died, 

20 and those of us who never knew him nor ever saw 
him, may now think about his work with that per- 
fect detachment which is impossible in the case of 
actual contemporaries.^ 

1 The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, by his nephew, George 
Otto Trevelyan, appeared in 1876. 

2 Since the following piece was written, Mr. Trevelyan's biography 
of Lord Macaulay has appeared, and has enjoyed the great popularity 
to which its careful execution, its brightness of style, its good taste, its 
sound judgment, so richly entitle it. If Mr. Trevelyan's course in poli- 
tics were not so useful as it is, one might be tempted to regret that he 
had not chosen literature for the main field of his career. The portrait 
which he draws of Lord Macaulay is so irresistibly attractive in many 



Macaulay 6y 

II. That Macaulay comes in the very front rank 
in the mind of the ordinary bookbuyer of our day 
is quite certain. It is an amusement with some 
people to put an imaginary case of banishment to 
a desert island, with the privilege of choosing the 5 
works of one author, and no more than one, to 
furnish literary companionship and refreshment for 
the rest of a lifetime. Whom would one select for 
this momentous post } Clearly the author must be 
voluminous, for days on desert islands are many and 10 
long ; he must be varied in his moods, his topics, 
and his interests ; he must have a great deal to say, 
and must have a power of saying it that shall 
arrest a depressed and dolorous spirit. English- 
men, of course, would with mechanical unanimity call 15 
for Shakespeare ; Germans could hardly hesitate 
about Goethe; and a sensible Frenchman would 
pack up the ninety volumes of Voltaire. It would 
be at least as interesting to know the object of a 
second choice, supposing the tyrant in his clem- 20 
ency to give us two authors. In the case of Eng- 
lishmen there is some evidence as to a popular 
preference. A recent traveller in Australia informs 

ways, that a critic may be glad to have delivered his soul before his 
judgment was subject to a dangerous bias, by the picture of Macaulay's 
personal character — its domestic amiability, its benevolence to unlucky 
followers of letters, its manliness, its high public spirit and generous 
patriotism. On reading my criticism over again, I am well pleased to 
find that not an epithet needs to be altered, — so independent is opinion 
as to this strong man's work, of our esteem for his loyal and upright 
character. — Morley, 



68 John Morley 



^ 



us that the three books which he found on every 
squatter^s shelf, and which at last he knew before 
he crossed the threshold that he should be sure to 
find, were Shakespeare, the Bible, and Macaulay's 

5 Essays, This is only an illustration of a feeling 
about Macaulay that has been almost universal 
among the English-speaking peoples. 

III. We may safely say that no man obtains and 
keeps for a great many years such a position as this, 

lo unless he is possessed of some very extraordinary 
qualities, or else of common qualities in a very un- 
common and extraordinary degree. The world, says 
Goethe, is more willing to endure the Incongruous 
than to be patient under the Insignificant. Even 

IS those who set least value on what Macaulay does for 
his readers, may still feel bound to distinguish the 
elements that have given him his vast popularity. 
The inquiry is not a piece of merely literary criticism, 
for it is impossible that the work of so imposing a 

20 writer should have passed through the hands of every 
man and woman of his time who has even the hum- 
blest pretensions to cultivation, without leaving a 
very decided mark on their habits both of thought 
and expression. As a plain matter of observation, 

25 it is impossible to take up a newspaper or a review, 
for instance, without perceiving Macaulay's influence 
both in the style and the temper of modern journal- 
ism, and journalism in its turn acts upon the style 
and temper of its enormous uncounted public. The 

30 man who now succeeds in catching the ear of the 



Macaulay 69 

writers of leading articles, is in the position that used 
to be held by the head of some great theological 
school, whence disciples swarmed forth to reproduce 
in ten thousand pulpits the arguments, the opinions, 
the images, the tricks, the postures, and the manner- 5 
isms of a single master. 

IV. Two men of very different kinds have thor- 
oughly impressed the journalists of our time, Ma- 
caulay and Mr. Mill.^ Mr. Carlyle we do not add 
to them ; he is, as the Germans call Jean Paul, der 10 
Einzige. And he is a poet, while the other two are 
in their degrees serious and argumentative writers, 
dealing in different ways with the great topics that 
constitute the matter and business of daily discus- 
sion. They are both of them practical enough to 15 
interest men handling real affairs, and yet they are 
general or theoretical enough to supply such men 
with the large and ready commonplaces which are 
so useful to a profession that has to produce literary 
graces and philosophical decorations at an hour's 20 
notice. It might perhaps be said of these two dis- 
tinguished men that our public writers owe most of 
their virtues to the one, and most of their vices to 
the other. If Mill taught some of them to reason, 
Macaulay tempted more of them to declaim : if Mill 25 
set an example of patience, tolerance, and fair ex- 
amination of hostile opinions, Macaulay did much to 

3 It should be borne in mind that Mill and Carlyle were alive at the 
time of writing the essay (1876) ; hence the title Mr. was properly added 
to their names. 



JO John Morley 



^ 



encourage oracular arrogance, and a rather too thra- 
sonical complacency ; if Mill sowed ideas of the great 
economic, political, and moral bearings of the forces 
of society, Macaulay trained a taste for superficial 
5 particularities, trivial circumstantialities of local 
colour, and all the paraphernalia of the pseudo- 
picturesque. 

V. Of course nothing so obviously untrue is meant 
as that this is an account of Macaulay's own quality. 

lo What is empty pretension in the leading article, was 
often a warranted self-assertion in Macaulay; what 
in it is little more than testiness, is in him often a 
generous indignation. What became and still remain 
in those who have made him their model, substan- 

15 tive and organic vices, the foundation of literary 
character and intellectual temper, were in him the 
incidental defects of a vigorous genius. And we 
have to take a man of his power and vigour with 
all his drawbacks, for the one are wrapped up in 

2o' the other. Charles Fox used to apply to Burke a 
passage that Quintilian wrote about Ovid. '' Si 
animi sui affectibus temperare quam indulgere ma- 
luisset," quoted Fox, "quid vir iste praestare non 
potuerit!"* But this is really not at all certain 

35 either of Ovid, or Burke, or any one else. It suits 
moralists to tell us that excellence lies in the happy 
mean and nice balance of our faculties and impulses, 
and perhaps in so far as our own contentment and 

* [Had that man chosen rather to temper his will than to indulge it, 
in what might he not have excelled !] 






Macaulay 71 



easy passage through Hfe are involved, what they 
tell us is true. But for making a mark in the world, 
for rising to supremacy in art or thought or affairs 
— whatever those aims maybe worth — a man pos- 
sibly does better to indulge, rather than to chide 5 
or grudge, his genius, and to pay the penalties for 
his weakness, rather than run any risk of mutilating 
those strong faculties of which they happen to be 
an inseparable accident. Versatility is not a uni- 
versal gift among the able men of the world; not 10 
many of them have so many gifts of the spirit, as 
to be free to choose by what pass they will chmb 
**the steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar." 
If Macaulay had applied himself to the cultivation 
of a balanced judgment, of tempered phrases, and 15 
of relative propositions, he would probably have 
sunk into an impotent tameness. A great pugilist 
has sometimes been converted from the error of his 
ways, and been led zealously to cherish gospel graces, 
but the hero's discourses have seldom had the notes 20 
of unction and edification. Macaulay divested of all 
the exorbitancies of his spirit and his style, would have 
been a Samson shorn of the locks of his strength. 

VI. Although, however, a writer of marked qual- 
ity may do well to let his genius develop its spon- 25 
taneous forces without too assiduous or vigilant re- 
pression, trusting to other writers of equal strength 
in other directions, and to the general fitness of 
things and operation of time, to redress the bal- 
ance, still it is the task of criticism in counting up 30 



72 John Morley 

the contributions of one of these strong men to 
examine the mischiefs no less than the benefits 
incident to their work. There is no puny carping 
nor cavilHng in the process. It is because such 

5 men are strong that they are able to do harm ; 
they may injure the taste and judgment of a whole 
generation, just because they are never mediocre. 
That is implied in strength. Macaulay is not to be 
measured now merely as if he were the author of 

lo a new book. His influence has been a distinct 
literary force, and in an age of reading, this is to 
be a distinct force in deciding the temper, the 
process, the breadth, of men's opinions, no less than 
the manner of expressing them. It is no new 

15 observation that the influence of an author becomes 
in time something apart from his books : a certain 
generalised or abstract personality impresses itself 
on our minds, long after we have forgotten the 
details of his opinions, the arguments by which he 

20 enforced them, and even, what are usually the last 
to escape us, the images by which he illustrated 
them. Phrases and sentences are a mask : but we 
detect the features of the man behind the mask. 
This personality of a favourite author is a real and 

25 powerful agency. Unconsciously we are infected 
with his humours ; we apply his methods ; we find 
ourselves copying the rhythm and measure of his 
periods ; we wonder how he would have acted, or 
thought, or spoken in our circumstances. Usually 

30 a strong writer leaves a special mark in some par- 



Macaulay 73 

ticular region of mental activity : the final product 
of him is to fix some persistent religious mood, or 
some decisive intellectual bias, or else some trick 
of the tongue. Now Macaulay has contributed no 
philosophic ideas to the speculative stock, nor has 5 
he developed any one great historic or social truth. 
His work is always full of a high spirit of manli- 
ness, probity, and honour ; but he is not of that 
small band to whom we may apply Mackintosh's 
thrice and four times enviable panegyric on the 10 
eloquence of Dugald Stewart, that its peculiar glory 
consisted in having "breathed the love of virtue 
into whole generations of pupils." He has painted 
many striking pictures, and imparted a certain real- 
ity to our conception of many great scenes of the 15 
past. He did good service in banishing once for all 
those sentimental Jacobite leanings and prejudices 
which had been kept alive by the sophistry of the 
most popular^ of historians, and the imagination of 
the most popular^ of romance writers. But where 20 
he set his stamp has been upon style ; style in its 
widest sense, not merely on the grammar and 
mechanism of writing, but on what De Quincey 
described as its organology ;''^ style, that is to say, 
in its relation to ideas and feelings, its commerce 25 
with thought, and its reaction on what one may call 
the temper or conscience of the intellect. 

6 David Hume. 6 sir Walter Scott. 

■^ For De Quincey's theory of the mechanology and the organology of 
style, see his essay on StyU^ Part I. 



74 John Morley 

VII. Let no man suppose that it matters little 
whether the most universally popular of the serious 
authors of a generation — and Macaulay was nothing 
less than this — affects style coupe or style soutenu^ 

5 The critic of style is not the dancing-master, declaim- 
ing on the deep ineffable things that lie in a minuet. 
He is not the virtuoso of supines and gerundives. 
The morality of style goes deeper "than dull fools 
suppose." When Comte took pains to prevent any 

lo sentence from exceeding two lines of his manuscript 
or five of print ; to restrict every paragraph to seven 
sentences ; to exclude every hiatus between two 
sentences, or even between two paragraphs ; and 
never to reproduce any word, except the auxiliary 

15 monosyllables, in two consecutive sentences ; he jus- 
tified his literary solicitude by insisting on the whole- 
someness alike to heart and intelligence of submission 
to artificial institutions. He felt, after he had once 
mastered the habit of the new yoke, that it became 

20 the source of continual and unforeseeable improve- 
ments even in thought, and he perceived that the 
reason why verse is a higher kind of literary per- 
fection than prose, is that verse imposes a greater 
number of rigorous forms. We may add that verse 

25 itself is perfected, in the hands of men of poetic 
genius, in proportion to the severity of this mechan- 

^ Style coupe is, technically, that style in which the various so-called 
elements, particularly the sentences, are, so far as possible, independent 
of one another. In style sontenu there is a closer binding of phrases 
and sentences, both organically and by conjunctions. 



Macatday 75 



Hal regulation. Where Pope or Racine had one 
rule of metre, Victor Hugo has twenty, and he 
observes them as rigorously as an algebraist or an 
astronomer observes the rules of calculation or dem- 
onstration. One, then, who touches the style of a 5 
generation acquires no trifling authority over its 
thought and temper, as well as over the length of 
its sentences. 

VIII. The first and most obvious secret of 
Macaulay's place on popular bookshelves is that he 10 
has a true genius for narration, and narration will 
always in the eyes, not only of our squatters in the 
Australian bush, but of the many all over the world, 
stand first among literary gifts. The common run 
of plain men, as has been noticed since the begin- 15 
ning of the world, are as eager as children for a 
story, and like children they will embrace the man 
who will tell them a story, with abundance of details 
and plenty of colour, and a realistic assurance that 
it is no mere make-believe. Macaulay never stops 20 
to brood over an incident or a character, with an 
inner eye intent on penetrating to the lowest depth 
of motive and cause, to the furthest complexity of 
impulse, calculation, and subtle incentive. The 
spirit of analysis is not in him, and the divine spirit 25 
of meditation is not in him. His whole mind runs 
in action and movement ; it busies itself with eager 
interest in all objective particulars. He is seized 
by the external and the superficial, and revels in 



76 John Morley 

every detail that appeals to the five senses. *'The 
brilliant Macaulay/' said Emerson, with slight exag- 
geration, *'who expresses the tone of the English 
governing classes of the day, explicitly teaches that 
5 good means good to eat, good to wear, material 
commodity.'* So ready a faculty of exultation in 
the exceeding great glories of taste and touch, of 
loud sound and glittering spectacle, is a gift of the 
utmost service to the narrator who craves immense 

lo audiences. Let it be said that if Macaulay exults in 
the details that go to our five senses, his sensuous- 
ness is always clean, manly, and fit for honest day- 
light and the summer sun. There is none of that 
curious odour of autumnal decay that clings to the pas- 

15 sion of a more modern school for colour and flavour 
and the enumerated treasures of subtle indulgence. 

IX. Mere picturesqueness, however, is a minor 
qualification compared with another quality which 
everybody assumes himself to have, but which is in 

20 reality extremely uncommon ; the quality, I mean, of 
telling a tale directly and in straightforward order. 
In speaking of Hallam,^ Macaulay complained that 
Gibbon had brought into fashion an unpleasant trick 
of telling a story by implication and allusion. This 

25 provoking obliquity has certainly increased rather 
than declined since Hallam's day. Mr. Froude, it 
is true, whatever may be his shortcomings on the 
side of sound moral and political judgment, has 
admirable gifts in the way of straightforward narra- 

^ See the review entitled Hallam^s Constitutional History, 



I 



Macaulay yj 



tion, and Mr. Freeman, when he does not press too 
hotly after emphasis, and abstains from overloading 
his account with superabundance of detail, is usually 
excellent in the way of direct description. Still, it 
is not merely because these two writers are alive 5 
and Macaulay is not, that most people would say of 
him that he is unequalled in our time in his mastery 
of the art of letting us know in an express and un- 
mistakable way exactly what it was that happened ; 
though it is quite true that in many portions of 10 
his too elaborated History of William the Third he 
describes a large number of events about which, I 
think, no sensible man can in the least care either 
how they happened, or whether indeed they hap- 
pened at all or not. 15 

X. Another reason why people have sought Ma- 
caulay is, that he has in one way or another some- 
thing to tell them about many of the most striking 
personages and interesting events in the history of 
mankind. And he does really tell them something. 20 
If any one will be at the trouble to count up the 
number of those names that belong to the world and 
time, about which Macaulay has found not merely 
something, but something definite and pointed to 
say, he will be astonished to see how large a portion 25 
of the wide historic realm is traversed in that ample 
flight of reference, allusion, and illustration, and what 
unsparing copiousness of knowledge gives substance, 
meaning, and attraction to that resplendent blaze of 
rhetoric. 30 



j"^ John Morley 

XI. Macaulay came upon the world of letters ^^ 
just as the middle classes were expanding into enor- 
mous prosperity, were vastly increasing in numbers, 
and were becoming more alive than they had ever 
5 been before to literary interests. His Essays are 
as good as a library : they make an incomparable 
manual and vade-mecum for a busy uneducated man, 
who has curiosity and enlightenment enough to wish 
to know a little about the great lives and great 
lo thoughts, the shining words and many-coloured com- 
plexities of action, that have marked the journey of 
man through the ages. Macaulay had an intimate 
acquaintance both with the imaginative literature 
and the history of Greece and Rome, with the litera- 
ls ture and the history of modern Italy, of France, and 
of England. Whatever his special subject, he con- 
trives to pour into it with singular dexterity a stream 
of rich, graphic, and telling illustrations from all 
these widely diversified sources. Figures from his- 
20 tory, ancient and modern, sacred and secular ; char- 
acters from plays and novels from Plautus down to 
Walter Scott and Jane Austen ; images and similes 
from poets of every age and every nation, ^* pastoral, 
pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-histori- 
25 cal ; " shrewd thrusts from satirists, wise saws from 
sages, pleasantries caustic or pathetic from humorists ; 
all these throng Macaulay's pages with the bustle 
and variety and animation of some glittering masque 

1^ The Essay on Milton appeared in 1825 in the Edinburgh Review 
and won great favor for its young author. 



Macaulay 79 

and cosmoramic revel of great books and heroical 
men. Hence, though Macaulay was in mental con- 
stitution one of the very least Shakesperean writers 
that ever lived, yet he has the Shakesperean quality 
of taking his reader through an immense gallery of 5 
interesting characters and striking situations. No 
writer can now expect to attain the widest popularity 
as a man of letters unless he gives to the world miilta 
as well as miiltum. Sainte-Beuve, the most eminent 
man of letters in France in our generation, wrote 10 
no less than twenty-seven volumes of his incompara- 
ble Catiseries, Mr. Carlyle, the most eminent man 
of letters in England in our generation, has taught 
us that silence is golden in thirty volumes. Macau- 
lay was not so exuberantly copious as these two illus- 15 
trious writers, but he had the art of being as various 
without being so voluminous. 

XII. There has been a great deal of deliberate 
and systematic imitation of Macaulay's style, often 
by clever men who might well have trusted to their 20 
own resources. Its most conspicuous vices are very 
easy to imitate, but it is impossible for any one who 
is less familiar with literature than Macaulay was, 
to reproduce his style effectively, for the reason that 
it is before all else the style of great literary knowl- 25 
edge. Nor is that all. Macaulay's knowledge was 
not only very wide ; it was both thoroughly accurate 
and instantly ready. For this stream of apt illustra- 
tions he was indebted to his extraordinary memory, 
and his rapid eye for contrasts and analogies. They 30 



8o John Morley 

come to the end of his pen as he writes ; they arej 
not laboriously hunted out in indexes, and then addec 
by way of afterthought and extraneous interpolation. 
Hence quotations and references that in a writer! 
5 even of equal knowledge, but with his wits less^ 
promptly about him, would seem mechanical and 
awkward, find their place in a page of Macaulay as 
if by a delightful process of complete assimilation 
and spontaneous fusion. 

lo XIII. We may be sure that no author could 
have achieved Macaulay's boundless popularity 
among his contemporaries, unless his work had 
abounded in what is substantially Commonplace. 
Addison puts fine writing in sentiments that are 

15 natural without being obvious, and this is a true 
account of the *'law" of the exquisite literature of 
the Queen Anne men. We may perhaps add to 
Addison's definition, that the great secret of the 
best kind of popularity is always the noble or 

20 imaginative handling of Commonplace. Shake- 
speare may at first seem an example to the con- 
trary ; and indeed is it not a standing marvel that 
the greatest writer of a nation that is distinguished 
among all nations for the pharisaism, puritanism, 

25 and unimaginative narrowness of its judgments on 
conduct and type of character, should be paramount 
over all writers for the breadth, maturity, fulness, 
subtlety, and infinite variousness of his conception 
of human life and nature } One possible answer 



Macau lay 8i 

to the perplexity is that the puritanism does not 
go below the surface in us, and that Englishmen 
are not really limited in their view by the too 
strait formulas that are supposed to contain their 
explanations of the moral universe. On this theory 5 
the popular appreciation of Shakespeare is the irre- 
pressible response of the hearty inner man to a 
voice, in which he recognises the full note of human 
nature, and those wonders of the world which are not 
dreamt of in his professed philosophy. A more obvi- 10 
ous answer than this is that Shakespeare's popularity 
with the many is not due to those finer glimpses 
that are the very essence of all poetic delight to 
the few, but to his thousand other magnificent 
attractions, and above all, after his skill as a pure 15 
dramatist and master of scenic interest and situa- 
tion, to the lofty or pathetic setting with which he 
vivifies, not the subtleties or refinements, but the 
commonest and most elementary traits of the com- 
monest and most elementary human moods. The 20 
few with minds touched by nature or right cultiva- 
tion to the finer issues, admire the supreme genius 
which takes some poor Italian tale, with its coarse 
plot and gross personages, and shooting it through 
with threads of variegated meditation, produces a 25 
masterpiece of penetrative reflection and high pen- 
sive suggestion as to the deepest things and most 
secret parts of the life of men. But to the gen- 
eral these finer threads are indiscernible. What 
touches them in the Shakesperean poetry, and most 30 



82 John M or ley 

rightly touches them and us all, are topics eternally 
old, yet of eternal freshness, the perennial truisms 
of the grave and the bride-chamber, of shifting 
fortune, of the surprises of destiny, and the en)pti- 

5 ness of the answered vow. This is the region in 
which the poet wins his widest if not his hardest 
triumphs, the region of the noble Commonplace. 

XIV. A writer dealing with such matters as 
principally occupied Macaulay, has not the privi- 

lo lege of resort to these great poetic inspirations. 
Yet history, too, has its generous commonplaces, 
its plausibilities of emotion, and no one has ever 
delighted more than Macaulay did, to appeal to the 
fine truisms that cluster round love of freedom 

IS and love of native land. The high rhetorical topics 
of liberty and patriotism are his readiest instru- 
ments for kindling a glowing reflection of these 
magnanimous passions in the breasts of his read- 
ers. That Englishman is hardly to be envied who 

20 can read without a glow such passages as that in 
the History, about Turenne being startled by the 
shout of stern exultation with which his English 
allies advanced to the combat, and expressing the 
delight of a true soldier when he learned that it 

25 was ever the fashion of Cromwell's pikemen to 
rejoice greatly when they beheld the enemy ; while 
even the banished cavaliers felt an emotion of 
national pride when they saw a brigade of their 
countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned 

30 by friends, drive before it in headlong rout the 



Macaulay 83 

finest infantry of Spain, and force a passage into 
a counter-scarp which had just been pronounced 
impregnable by the ablest of the marshals of 
France.^^ Such prose as this is not less thrilling 
to a man who loves his country, than the spirited 5 
verse of the Lays of Ancient Rome. And the com- 
monplaces of patriotism and freedom would never 
have been so powerful in Macaulay's hands, if they 
had not been inspired by a sincere and hearty faith 
in them in the soul of the writer. His unanalyti- 10 
cal turn of mind kept him free of any temptation 
to think of love of country as a prejudice, or a pas- 
sion for freedom as an illusion. The cosmopolitan 
or international idea which such teachers as Cob- 
den have tried to impress on our stubborn island- 15 
ers, would have found in Macaulay not lukewarm 
or sceptical adherence, but point-blank opposition 
and denial. He believed as stoutly in the suprem- 
acy of Great Britain in the history of the good 
causes of Europe, as M. Thiers believes in the 20 
supremacy of France, or Mazzini believed in that 
of Italy. The thought of the prodigious industry, 
the inventiveness, the stout enterprise, the free 
government, the wise and equal laws, the noble 
literature, of this fortunate island and its majestic 25 
empire beyond the seas, and the discretion, valour, 
and tenacity by which all these great material and 

^1 History ^ Chapter I. The sentence from '* Turenne " to the period 
is taken directly from Macaulay with the change of one or two connec- 
tive words. 



84 John Mo7dey 

still greater intangible possessions had been first 
won, and then kept, against every hostile comer 
whether domestic or foreign, sent through Macaulay 
a thrill, like that which the thought of Paris and 

5 its heroisms moves in the great poet of France, ^2 qj- 
sight of the dear city of the Violet Crown moved 
in an Athenian of old. Thus habitually, with all 

. sincerity of heart, to offer to one of the greater popu- 
lar prepossessions the incense due to any other idol 

10 of superstition, sacred and of indisputable authority, 
and to let this adoration be seen shining in every 
page, is one of the keys that every man must find, 
who would make a quick and sure way into the 
temple of contemporary fame. 

15 XV. It is one of the first things to be said about 
Macaulay, that he was in exact accord with the com- 
mon average sentiment of his day on every subject 
on which he spoke. His superiority was not of that 
highest kind which leads a man to march in thought 

20 on the outside margin of the crowd, watching them, 
sympathising with them, hoping for them, but apart. 
Macaulay was one of the middle-class crowd in his 
heart, and only rose above it by splendid attainments 
and extraordinary gifts of expression. He had none 

25 of that ambition which inflames some hardy men, to 
make new beliefs and new passions enter the minds 
of their neighbours ; his ascendency is due to liter- 
ary pomp, not to fecundity of spirit. No one has 
ever surpassed him in the art of combining resolute 

12 Victor Hugo. 



Macatilay 85 

and ostentatious common sense of a slightly coarse 
sort in choosing his point of view, with so considera- 
ble an appearance of dignity and elevation in setting 
it forth and impressing it upon others. The elabo- 
rateness of his style is very likely to mislead people r 
into imagining for him a corresponding elaborate- 
ness of thought and sentiment. On the contrary, 
Macaulay's mind was really very simple, strait, and 
with as few notes in its register, to borrow a phrase 
from the language of vocal compass, as there are few 10 
notes, though they are very loud, in the register of 
his written prose. When we look more closely into 
it, what at first wore the air of dignity and elevation, 
in truth rather disagreeably resembles the narrow 
assurance of a man who knows that he has with him 15 
the great battalions of public opinion. We are al- 
ways quite sure that if Macaulay had been an Athe- 
nian citizen towards the ninety-fifth Olympiad, he 
would have taken sides with Anytus and Meletus 
in the impeachment of Socrates. A popular author 20 
must, in a thorough-going way, take the accepted 
maxims for granted. He must suppress any whimsi- 
cal fancy for applying the Socratic elenchus,^^ or any 
other engine of criticism, scepticism, or verification, 
to those sentiments or current precepts of morals, 25 
which may in truth be very equivocal and may be 
much neglected in practice, but which the public 
opinion of his time requires to be treated in theory 

^3 A form of syllogism. Here, the method used by Socrates in re- 
futing the false reasoning of the Sophists. 



86 John Morley 

and in literature as if they had been cherished and 
held sacred semper, ubique, et ab omnibus. 

XVI. This is just what Macaulay does, and it is 
commonly supposed to be no heavy fault in him or 

5 any other writer for the common public. Man can- 
not live by analysis alone, nor nourish himself on the 
secret delights of irony. And if Macaulay had only 
reflected the more generous of the prejudices of man- 
kind, it would have been well enough. Burke, for 

lo instance, was a writer who revered the prejudices of 
a modern society as deeply as Macaulay did ; he be- 
lieved society to be founded on prejudices and held 
compact by them. Yet what size there is in Burke, 
what fine perspective, what momentum, what edifica- 

15 tion ! It may be pleaded that there is the literature 
of edification, and there is the literature of knowl- 
edge, and that the qualities proper to the one cannot 
lawfully be expected from the other, and would only 
be very much out of place if they should happen to 

20 be found there. But there are two answers to this. 
First, Macaulay in the course of his varied writings 
discusses all sorts of ethical and other matters, and 
is not simply a chronicler of party and intrigue, of 
dynasties and campaigns. Second, and more than 

25 this, even if he had never travelled beyond the com- 
position of historical record, he could still have sown 
his pages, as does every truly great writer, no mat- 
ter what his subject may be, with those significant 
images or far-reaching suggestions, which suddenly 

30 light up a whole range of distant thoughts and sym- 



Macaulay 87 

pathies within us ; which in an instant affect the 
sensibilities of men with a something new and unfore- 
seen ; and which awaken, if only for a passing mo- 
ment, the faculty and response of the diviner mind. 
Tacitus does all this, and Burke does it, and that is 5 
why men who care nothing for Roman despots or for 
Jacobin despots, will still perpetually turfi to those 
writers almost as if they were on the level of great 
poets or very excellent spiritual teachers. 

XVII. One secret is that they, and all such men 10 
as they were, had that of which Macaulay can hardly 
have had the rudimentary germ, the faculty of deep 
abstract meditation and surrender to the fruitful 
'* leisures of the spirit." We can picture Macaulay 
talking, or making a speech in the House of Com- 15 
mons, or buried in a book, or scouring his library 
for references, or covering his blue foolscap with 
dashing periods, or accentuating his sentences and 
barbing his phrases ; but can anybody think of him 
as meditating, as modestly pondering and wondering, 20 
as possessed for so much as ten minutes by that 
spirit of inwardness, which has never been wholly 
wanting in any of those kings and princes of litera- 
ture with whom it is good for men to sit in coun- 
sel.^ He seeks Truth, not as she should be sought, 25 
devoutly, tentatively, and with the air of one touch- 
ing the hem of a sacred garment, but clutching her 
by the hair of the head and dragging her after him 
in a kind of boisterous triumph, a prisoner of war 
and not a goddess. 30 



88 John Morley 

XVIII. All this finds itself reflected, as the inner 
temper of a man always is reflected, in his style of 
written prose. The merits of Macaulay's prose are 
obvious enough. It naturally reproduces the good 

5 qualities of his understanding, its strength, manli- 
ness, and directness. That exultation in material 
goods and glories of which we have already spoken, 
makes his pages rich in colour, and gives them the 
effect of a sumptuous gala-suit. Certainly the bro- 

lo cade is too brand-new, and has none of the delicate 
charm that comes to such finery when it is a little 
faded. Again, nobody can ^have any excuse for not 
knowing exactly what it is that Macaulay means. 
We may assuredly say of his prose what Boileau 

IS says of his own poetry — **Et mon vers, bien ou 
mal, dit toujours quelque chose.'' ^* This is a pro- 
digious merit, when we reflect with what fatal alac- 
rity human language lends itself in the hands of so 
many performers upon the pliant instrument, to all 

20 sorts of obscurity, ambiguity, disguise, and preten- 
tious mystification. Scaliger is supposed to have 
remarked of the Basques and their desperate tongue : 
**'Tis said the Basques understand one another; for 
my part, I will never believe it." The same pun- 

25 gent doubt might apply to loftier members of the 
hierarchy of speech than that forlorn dialect, but 
never to English as handled by Macaulay. He 
never wrote an obscure sentence in his life, and 

1* [And my verse, whether good or bad, always has something to 

say.] 



Macaulay 89 

this may seem a small merit, until we remember of 
how few writers we could say the same. 

XIX. Macaulay is of those who think prose as 
susceptible of polished and definite form as verse, 
and he was, we should suppose, of those also who s 
hold the type and mould of all written language to 
be spoken language. There are more reasons for de- 
murring to the soundness of the latter doctrine than 
can conveniently be made to fill a digression here. 
For one thing, spoken language necessarily implies 10 
one or more listeners, whereas written language 
may often have to express meditative moods and 
trains of inward reflection that move through the 
mind without trace of external reference, and that 
would lose their special traits by the introduction 15 
of any suspicion that they were to be overheard. 
Again, even granting that all composition must be 
supposed to be meant, by the fact of its existence, 
to be addressed to a body of readers, it still re- 
mains to be shown that indirect address to the 20 
inner ear should follow the same method and 
rhythm as address directly through impressions on 
the outer organ. The attitude of the recipient mind 
is different, and there is the symbolism of a new 
medium between it and the speaker. The writer, 25 
being cut off from all those effects which are pro- 
ducible by the physical intonations of the voice, 
has to find substitutes for them by other means, by 
subtler cadences, by a more varied modulation, by 
firmer notes, by more complex circuits, than suffice 30 



90 John Morley 

for the utmost perfection of spoken language, which 
has all the potent and manifold aids of personality. 
In writing, whether it be prose or verse, you are 
free to produce effects whose peculiarity one can 

5 only define vaguely, by saying that the senses have 
one part less in them than in any other of the 
forms and effects of art, and the imaginary voice 
one part more. But the question need not be 
laboured here, because there can be no dispute as 

lo to the quality of Macaulay's prose. Its measures 
are emphatically the measures of spoken deliver- 
ance. Those who have made the experiment, pro- 
nounce him to be one of the authors whose works 
are most admirably fitted for reading aloud. His 

IS firmness and directness of statement, his spirited- 
ness, his art of selecting salient and highly coloured 
detail, and all his other merits as a narrator, keep 
the listener's attention, and make him the easiest 
of writers to follow. 

20 XX. Although, however, clearness, directness, and 
positiveness are master qualities and the indispen- 
sable foundations of all good style, yet does the 
matter plainly by no means end with them. And 
it is even possible to have these virtues so unhap- 

25 pily proportioned and inauspiciously mixed with other 
turns and casts of mind, as to end in work with little 
grace or harmony or fine tracery about it, but only 
overweening purpose and vehement will. And it 
is overweeningness and self-confident will that are 

30 the chief notes of Macaulay's style. It has no 



Macanlay 9 1 

benignity. Energy is doubtless a delightful quality, 
but then Macaulay's energy is perhaps energy with- 
out momentum, and he impresses us more by a 
strong volubility than by volume. It is the energy 
of interests and intuitions, which though they are 5 
profoundly sincere if ever they were sincere in any 
man, are yet in the relations which they compre- 
hend, essentially superficial. 

XXI. Still, trenchancy whether in speaker or 
writer is a most effective tone for a large public. 10 
It gives them confidence in their man, and prevents 
tediousness — except to those who reflect how deli- 
cate is the poise of truth, and what steeps and pits 
encompass the dealer in unqualified propositions. 
To such persons, a writer who is trenchant in 15 
every sentence of every page, who never lapses for 
a line into the contingent, who marches through the 
intricacies of things in a blaze of certainty, is not 
only a writer to be distrusted, but the owner of a 
doubtful and displeasing style. It is a great test 20 
of style to watch how an author disposes of the 
qualifications, limitations, and exceptions that clog 
the wings of his main proposition. The grave and 
conscientious men of the seventeenth century in- 
sisted on packing them all honestly along with the 25 
main proposition itself, within the bounds of a single 
period. Burke arranges them in tolerably close 
order in the paragraph. Dr. Newman, that winning 
writer, disperses them lightly over his page. Of 
Macaulay it is hardly unfair to say that he despatches 30 



92 John Morley 

all qualifications into outer space before he begins 
to write, or if he magnanimously admits one or two 
here and there, it is only to bring them the more 
imposingly to the same murderous end. 

5 XXII. We have spoken of Macaulay's interests 
and intuitions wearing a certain air of superficiality; 
there is a feeling of the same kind about his attempts 
to be genial. It is not truly festive. There is no 
abandonment in it. It has no deep root in moral 

lo humour, and is merely a literary form, resembling 
nothing so much as the hard geniality of some clever 
college tutor of stiff manners, entertaining under- 
graduates at an official breakfast-party. This is not 
because his tone is bookish ; on the contrary, his 

15 tone and level are distinctly those of the man of 
the world. But one always seems to find that 
neither a wide range of cultivation, nor familiar 
access to the best Whig ^^ circles, had quite removed 
the stiffness and self-conscious precision of the Clap- 

20 ham Sect.i^ We would give much for a Httle more 
flexibility, and would welcome ever so slight a con- 
sciousness of infirmity. As has been said, the only 

^5 The Whig party was founded in the latter part of the seventeenth 
century. It stood for the more liberal spirit in politics, favoured the 
Revolution of 1688, and the Reform Bill of 1832, since which time the 
name has been more commonly Liberal. The party was made up 
largely of the middle classes, and has contained such men as Burke and, 
under the name Liberal, Mr. Gladstone. 

16 Macaulay had been brought up by his parents among the so- 
called " Clapham Sect," which took its name from the suburb of Lon- 
don in which its members lived. The latter were noted for the 
strictness and austerity of their manner of life. 



Macau lay 93 

people whom men cannot pardon are the perfect. 
Macaulay is like the military king who never suf- 
fered himself to be seen, even by the attendants in 
his bed-chamber, until he had had time to put on 
his uniform and jack-boots. His severity of eye is 5 
very wholesome ; it makes his writing firm, and 
firmness is certainly one of the first qualities that 
good writing must have. But there is such a thing 
as soft and considerate precision, as well as hard 
and scolding precision. Those most interesting 10 
English critics of the generation slightly anterior 
to Macaulay, — Hazlitt, Lamb, De Quincey, Leigh 
Hunt,^*^ — were fully his equals in precision, and yet 
they knew how to be clear, acute, and definite, with- 
out that edginess and inelasticity which is so con- 15 
spicuous in Macaulay's criticisms, alike in their 
matter and their form. 

XXIIL To borrow the figure of an old writer, 
Macaulay's prose is not like a flowing vestment to 
his thought, but like a suit of armour. It is often 20 
splendid and glittering, and the movement of the 
opening pages of his History is superb in its dig- 
nity. But that movement is exceptional. As a rule 
there is the hardness, if there is also often the sheen, 
of highly-wrought metal. Or, to change our figure, 25 
his pages are composed as a handsome edifice is 

1" Lamb, the oldest of the group, was born in 1775, twenty-five years 
before Macaulay. De Quincey and Leigh Hunt, the last survivors of 
the group, died in 1859, the year of Macaulay's death, but, unlike him, 
were not cut off in the midst of their greatest literary work. 



94 John Morley 

reared, not as a fine statue or a frieze '' with bossy 
sculptures graven " grows up in the imaginative 
mind of the statuary. There is no liquid continu- 
ity, such as indicates a writer possessed by his 

5 subject and not merely possessing it. The periods 
are marshalled in due order of procession, bright and 
high-stepping ; they never escape under an impulse 
of emotion into the full current of a brimming 
stream. What is curious is that though Macaulay 

10 seems ever to be brandishing a two-edged gleaming 
sword, and though he steeps us in an atmosphere of 
belligerency, yet we are never conscious of inward 
agitation in him, and perhaps this alone would debar 
him from a place among the greatest writers. For 

15 they, under that reserve, suppression, or manage- 
ment, which is an indispensable condition of the 
finest rhetorical art, even when aiming at the most 
passionate effects, still succeed in conveying to their 
readers a thrilling sense of the strong fires that are 

2o glowing underneath. Now when Macaulay advances 
with his hectoring sentences and his rough pistol- 
ling ways, we feel all the time that his pulse is as 
steady as that of the most practised duellist who 
ever ate fire. He is too cool to be betrayed into a 

25 single phrase of happy improvisation. His pictures 
glare, but are seldom warm. Those strokes of 
minute circumstantiality which he loved so dearly, 
show that even in moments when his imagination 
might seem to be moving both spontaneously and 

30 ardently, it was really only a literary instrument, a 



Macau lay 95 

fashioning tool and not a melting flame. Let us 
take a single example. He is describing the trial 
of Warren Hastings. ^^ '' Every step in the proceed- 
ings," he says, *' carried the mind either backward 
through many troubled centuries to the days when 5 
the foundations of our constitution were laid ; or 
far away over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky 
nations living under strange stars, worshipping 
strange gods, and writing strange characters from 
right to left." The odd triviality of the last detail, 10 
its unworthiness of the sentiment of the passage, 
leaves the reader checked, what sets out as a fine 
stroke of imagination dwindles down to a sort of 
literary conceit. And this puerile twist, by the 
way, is all the poorer, when it is considered that 15 
the native writing is really from left to right, and 
only takes the other direction in a foreign, that is 
to say, a Persian alphabet. And so in other places, 
even where the writer is most deservedly admired 
for gorgeous picturesque effect, we feel that it is only 20 
the literary picturesque, a kind of infinitely glori- 
fied newspaper-reporting. Compare, for instance, 
the most imaginative piece to be found in any part 
of Macaulay's writings with that sudden and lovely 
apostrophe in Carlyle, after describing the bloody 25 
horrors that followed the fall of the Bastille in 
1789: — **0 evening sun of July, how, at this hour, 
thy beams fall slant on reapers amid peaceful woody 
fields ; on old women spinning in cottages ; on ships 

1^ Essay on Warren Hastings, 



96 John Morley 

far out in the silent main ; on balls at the Orangerie 
at Versailles, where high-rouged dames of the Palace 
are even now dancing with double-jacketed Hussar 
officers; — and also on this roaring Hell-porch of a 
5 Hotel de Ville ! " Who does not feel in this the 
breath of poetic inspiration, and how different it is 
from the mere composite of the rhetorician's imagi- 
nation, assiduously working to order? 

XXIV. This remark is no disparagement of 

10 Macaulay's genius, but a classification of it. We 
are interrogating our own impressions, and asking 
ourselves among what kind of writers he ought to 
be placed. Rhetoric is a good and worthy art, 
and rhetorical authors are often more useful, more 

15 instructive, more really respectable than poetical 
authors. But it is to be said that Macaulay as a 
rhetorician will hardly be placed in the first rank, 
by those who have studied both him and the great 
masters. Once more, no amount of embellishment 

20 or emphasis or brilliant figure suffices to produce this 
intense effect of agitation rigorously restrained ; nor 
can any beauty of decoration be in the least a sub- 
stitute for that touching and penetrative music, 
which is made in prose by the repressed trouble of 

25 grave and high souls. There is a certain music, we 
do not deny, in Macaulay, but it is the music of a 
man everlastingly playing for us ^ rapid solos on a 
silver trumpet, never the swelling diapasons of the 
organ, and never the deep ecstasies of the four 

30 magic strings. That so sensible a man as Macaulay 



Macaulay g'/ 

should keep clear of the modern abomination of 
dithyrambic prose,^^ that rank and sprawling weed 
of speech, was natural enough ; but then the effects 
which we miss in him, and which, considering how 
strong the literary faculty in him really was, we are s 
almost astonished to miss, are not produced by dithy- 
ramb but by repression. Of course the answer has 
been already given ; Macaulay, powerful and vigor- 
ous as he was, had no agitation, no wonder, no tumult 
of spirit to repress. The world was spread out clear lo 
before him ; he read it as plainly and as certainly 
as he read his books ; life was all an affair of direct 
categoricals. 

XXV. This was at least one secret of those hard 
modulations and shallow cadences. How poor is 15 
the rhythm of Macaulay *s prose we only realise by 
going with his periods fresh in our ear to some true 
master of harmony. It is not worth while to quote 
passages from an author who is in everybody's library, 
and Macaulay is always so much like himself that 20 
almost any one page will serve for an illustration 
exactly as well as any other. Let any one turn to 
his character of Somers,^^ for whom he had so much 
admiration, and then turn to Clarendon's character 
of Falkland ; — '* a person of such prodigious parts 25 
of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweet- 
ness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and 

1^ The phrase dithyrambic prose is applied to inflated and rhythmic 
forms of writing and even to the so-called " fine-writing." 
2^ History, Chapter XX. 
H 



98 John Morley 

obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and 
of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that 
if there were no other brand upon this odious and 
accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be 

5 most infamous and execrable to all posterity." Now 
Clarendon is not a great writer, not even a good 
writer, for he is prolix and involved, yet we see that 
even Clarendon, when he comes to a matter in which 
his heart is engaged, becomes sweet and harmonious 

lo in his rhythm. If we turn to a prose-writer of the 
very first place, we are instantly conscious of a still 
greater difference. How flashy and shallow Macau- 
lay's periods seem, as we listen to the fine ground- 
base that rolls in the melody of the following passage 

15 of Burke's, and it is taken from one of the least 
ornate of all his pieces: — 

You will not, we trust, believe that, born in a civilised country, 
formed to gentle manners, trained in a merciful religion, and 
living in enlightened and polished times, where even foreign 

20 hostility is softened from its original sternness, we could have 
thought of letting loose upon you, our late beloved brethren, 
these fierce tribes of savages and cannibals, in whom the traces 
of human nature are effaced by ignorance and barbarity. We 
rather wished to have joined with you in bringing gradually that 

25 unhappy part of mankind into civility, order, piety, and virtuous 
discipline, than to have confirmed their evil habits and increased 
their natural ferocity by fleshing them in the slaughter of you, 
whom our wiser and better ancestors had sent into the wilder- 
ness with the express view of introducing, along with our holy 

30 religion, its humane and charitable manners. We do not hold 
that all things are lawful in war. We should think every bar- 
barity, in fire, in wasting, in murders, in tortures, and other 



Macaulay 99 

cruelties, too horrible and too full of turpitude for Christian 
mouths to utter or ears to hear, if done at our instigation, by 
those who we know will make war thus if they make it at all, 
to be, to all intents and purposes, as if done by ourselves. We 
clear ourselves to you our brethren, to the present age, and to 5 
future generations, to our king and our country, and to Europe, 
which as a spectator, beholds this tragic scene, of every part 
or share in adding this last and worst of evils to the inevitable 
mischiefs of a civil war. 

We do not call you rebels and traitors. We do not call for 10 
the vengeance of the crown against you. We do not know how 
to qualify millions of our countrymen, contending with one heart 
for an admission to privileges which we have ever thought our 
own happiness and honour, by odious and unworthy names. 
On the contrary, we highly revere the principles on which you 15 
act, though we lament some of their effects. Armed as you are, 
we embrace you, as our friends and as our brethren by the best 
and dearest ties of relation. 

XXVI. It may be said that there is a patent 
injustice in comparing the prose of a historian 20 
criticising or describing great events at second 
hand, with the prose of a statesman taking active 
part in great events, fired by the passion of a 
present conflict, and stimulated by the vivid interest 
of undetermined issues. If this be a v^ell-grounded 25 
plea, and it may be so, then of course it excludes a 
contrast not only with Burke, but also with Boling- 
broke, whose fine manners and polished gaiety give 
us a keen sense of the grievous garishness of 
Macaulay. If we may not institute a comparison 30 
between Macaulay and great actors on the stage of 
affairs, at least there can be no objection to the 



100 John Morley 

introduction of Southey as a standard of compari- 
son. Southey was a man of letters pure and simple, 
and it is worth remarking that Macaulay himself ad- 
mitted that he found so great a charm in Southey's 

5 style, as nearly always to read it with pleasure, 
even when Southey was talking nonsense. Now, 
take any page of the Life of Nelson or the Life 
of Wesley ; consider how easy, smooth, natural, and 
winning is the diction and the rise and fall of the 

lo sentence, and yet how varied the rhythm and how 
nervous ^^ the phrases ; and then turn to a page of 
Macaulay, and wince under its stamping emphasis, 
its over-coloured tropes, its exaggerated expressions, 
its unlovely staccato. Southey' s History of the 

15 Peninsular War is now dead, but if any of my 
readers has a copy on his highest shelves, I would 
venture to ask him to take down the third volume, 
and read the concluding pages, of which Coleridge 
used to say that they were the finest specimen of 

20 historic eulogy he had ever read in English, adding 
with forgivable hyperbole, that they were more to 
the Duke's fame and glory than a campaign. '* Fore- 
sight and enterprise with our commander went hand 
in hand ; he never advanced but so as to be sure 

25 of his retreat ; and never retreated but in such an 
attitude as to impose upon a superior enemy," and 
so on through the sum of Wellington's achieve- 
ments. ^' There was something more precious than 
these, more to be desired than the high and endur- 
21 That is, marked by strength. 



Macaulay loi 

ing fame which he had secured by his military 
achievements, the satisfaction of thinking to what 
end those achievements had been directed ; that 
they were for the deliverance of two most injured 
and grievously oppressed nations ; for the safety, 5 
honour, and welfare of his own country ; and for 
the general interests of Europe and of the civilised 
world. His campaigns were sanctified by the cause ; 
they were sullied by no cruelties, no crimes ; the 
chariot-wheels of his triumphs have been followed 10 
by no curses ; his laurels are entwined with the 
amaranths of righteousness, and upon his death-bed 
he might remember his victories among his good 
works." 

XXVII. What is worse than want of depth and 15 
fineness of intonation in a period, is all gross excess 
of colour, because excess of colour is connected 
with graver faults in the region of the intellectual 
conscience. Macaulay is a constant sinner in this 
respect. The wine of truth is in his cup a bran- 20 
died draught, a hundred degrees above proof, and he 
too often replenishes the lamp of knowledge with 
naphtha instead of fine oil. It is not that he has a 
spontaneous passion for exuberant decoration, which 
he would have shared with more than one of the 25 
greatest names in literature. On the contrary, we 
feel that the exaggerated words and dashing sen- 
tences are the fruit of deliberate travail, and the 
petulance or the irony of his speech is mostly due 
to a driving predilection for strong effects. His 30 



I02 John Morley 

memory, his directness, his aptitude for forcing 
things into firm outline, and giving them a sharply 
defined edge, — these and other singular talents of 
his all lent themselves to this intrepid and indefati- 
5 gable pursuit of effect. And the most disagreeable 
feature is that Macaulay was so often content with 
an effect of an essentially vulgar kind, offensive to 
taste, discordant to the fastidious ear, and worst of 
all, at enmity with the whole spirit of truth. By 

lo vulgar we certainly do not mean homely, which 
marks a wholly different quality. No writer can be 
more homely than Mr. Carlyle, alike in his choice 
of particulars to dwell upon, and in the terms or 
images in which he describes or illustrates them, 

15 but there is also no writer further removed from 
vulgarity. Nor do we mean that Macaulay too 
copiously enriches the tongue with infusion from 
any Doric dialect.^^ For such raciness he had little 
taste. What we find in him is that quality which the 

20 French call brutal. The description, for instance, 
in the essay on Hallam, of the licence of the 
Restoration, seems to us a coarse and vulgar pict- 
ure, whose painter took the most garish colours he 
could find on his palette, and then laid them on 

25 in untempered crudity. And who is not sensible 
of the vulgarity and coarseness of the account of 
Boswell.^^ '*If he had not been a great fool he 

22 The Doric dialect was deemed less pure and elegant than the 
Attic. Here the phrase means slang. 

23 Croker^s Edition of BosweWs Life of Johnson* 



Macaiday 1 03 

would not have been a great writer ... he was 
a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb," and so forth, 
in which the shallowness of the analysis of Bos- 
well's character matches the puerile rudeness of 
the terms. Here, again, is a sentence about Mon- 5 
tesquieu.2^ '^The English at that time,'' Macaulay 
says of the middle of the eighteenth century, 
*' considered a Frenchman who talked about consti- 
tutional checks and fundamental laws as a prodigy 
not less astonishing than the learned pig or musi- ic 
cal infant." And he then goes on to describe the 
author of one of the most important books that 
ever were written, as "specious but shallow, studi- 
ous of effect, indifferent to truth — the lively 
President," and so forth, stirring in any reader 15 
who happens to know Montesquieu's influence, a 
singular amazement. We are not concerned with 
the judgment upon Montesquieu, nor with the truth 
as to contemporary English opinion about him, but 
a writer who devises an antithesis to such a man 20 
as Montesquieu in learned pigs and musical infants, 
deliberately condescends not merely to triviality or 
levity, but to flat vulgarity of thought, to something 
of mean and ignoble association. Though one of 
the most common, this is not Macaulay's only sin 25 
in the same unfortunate direction. He too fre- 
quently resorts to vulgar gaudiness. For example, 
there is in one place a certain description of an 
alleged practice of Addison's. Swift had said of 

2* Essay on Machiavelli, 



104 John Morley 

Esther Johnson that ''whether from easiness in 
general, or from her indifference to persons, or 
from her despair of mending them, or from the 
same practice which she most liked in Mr. Addison, 

5 I cannot determine ; but when she saw any of the 
company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was 
more inclined to confirm them in it than to oppose 
them. It prevented noise, she said, and saved 
time." 2^ Let us behold what a picture *^^ Macaulay 

lo draws on the strength of this passage. *' If his 
first attempts to set a presuming dunce right were 
ill-received," Macaulay says of Addison, *'he changed 
his tone, 'assented with civil leer,' and lured the 
flattered coxcomb deeper and deeper into absurd- 

15 ity." To compare this transformation of the sim- 
plicity of the original into the grotesque heat and 
overcharged violence of the copy, is to see the 
homely maiden of a country village transformed 
into the painted flaunter of the city. 

2o XXVIII. One more instance. We should be 
sorry to violate any sentiment of to ae/jLvov^"^ about 
a man of Macaulay's genius, but what is a decorous 
term for a description of the doctrine of Lucretius's 
great poem, thrown in parenthetically, as the "sil- 

25 liest and meanest system of natural and moral 
philosophy ! " Even disagreeable artifices of com- 

25 Forster's Swtfiy I. 26$. — Morley. 

26 7'^g Life and Writings of Addison. 

27 The phrase to (rejjivbv means the divine; here, the grand., the 
majestic. 



Macaulay 105 

position may be forgiven, when they serve to vivify 
truth, to quicken or to widen the moral judgment, 
but Macaulay's hardy and habitual recourse to 
strenuous superlatives is fundamentally unscientific 
and untrue. There is no more instructive example 5 
in our literature than he, of the saying that the 
adjective is the enemy of the substantive. 

XXIX. In 1837 Jeffrey saw a letter written by 
Macaulay to a common friend, and stating the rea- 
sons for preferring a literary to a political life. 10 
Jeffrey thought that his illustrious ally was wrong 
in the conclusion to which he came. "As to the 
tranquillity of an author's life," he said, " I have no 
sort of faith in it. And as to fame, if an author's 
is now and then more lasting, it is generally longer 15 
withheld, and except in a few rare cases it is of a 
less pervading or elevating description. A great 
poet or a great origijial writer is above all other 
glory. But who would give much for such a glory 
as Gibbon's } Besides, I believe it is in the inward 20 
glow and pride of consciously influencing the desti- 
nies of mankind, much more than in the sense of 
personal reputation, that the delight of either poet 
or statesman chiefly consists." And Gibbon had at 
least the advantage of throwing himself into a re- 25 
ligious controversy that is destined to endure for 
centuries. He, moreover, was specifically a his- 
torian, while Macaulay has been prized less as a 
historian proper than as a master of literary art. 



io6 John Morley 

Now a man of letters, in an age of battle and tran- 
sition like our own, fades into an ever-deepenin 
distance, unless he has while he writes that touch- 
ing and impressive quality, — tho presentiment of 

5 the eve; a feeling of the difficulties and interests 
that will engage and distract mankind on the morrow. 
Nor can it be enough for enduring fame in any age 
merely to throw a golden halo round the secularity 
of the hour, or to make glorious the narrowest limi- 

lo tations of the passing day. If we think what a 
changed sense is already given to criticism, what a 
different conception now presides over history, how 
many problems on which Macaulay was silent are 
now the familiar puzzles of even superficial readers, 

15 we cannot help feeling that the eminent man whose 
life we are all about to read, is the hero of a past 
which is already remote, and that he did little to 
make men better fi.tted to face a present of which, 
close as it was to him, he seems hardly to have 

20 dreamed. 



\ 



2IO Notes 



I 



III. MACAULAY 

I. Object of the Essay. — The essay on Macaulay is presented as 
an example of review-writing of a high grade. Structurally, it is 
more difficult than the one immediately preceding in that it attempts 
to present opinions, not in groups, but in definite lines of thought 
leading up to one end. 

II. Principles of Structure. — In addition to certain fundamental 
principles of selection and arrangement, such as w^e have seen in 
selections I. and II., there are other points to be noted with more 
exactness in this essay, and in essays which, like this, attempt to 
present lines of thought, than in the foregoing essays. In the 
present selection they are essential to a proper understanding of the 
structure, and are as follows : 

1 . The exact purpose of the essay. This is found in the open- 
ing paragraph — to weigh the value and significance of Macaulay's 
ideas and briefly to sum up his place in English letters in anticipa- 
tion of the appearance of Trevelyan's Life. As Mr. Morley says, 
some notion of what a reader should expect of the book he is about 
to read is of great value in defining his ideas and sharpening his 
critical appreciation. 

2. The place and the public. The purpose is further con- 
ditioned by the character of the audience and by the means of 
communication. It should be noted that the essay was wTitten for 
the Fortnightly Review^ which, like all good periodicals, other than 
those devoted to special subjects, aims to give popular and general 
rather than minutely technical and learned judgments. Reviews 
of this sort, however high their aim and excellent their tone, are 
often called upon to ^'produce literary graces and philosophical 
decorations at an hour's notice.^' 

3. The point of view of the author. The reader should bear in 
mind that Mr. Morley, as will readily be inferred from the closing 
paragraph of the essay, belongs to that very age whose problems 
he laments Macaulay^s failure to foresee ; and this advantage he 
shares with such severe critics of Macaulay as Mr. Leslie Stephen 
(^Macajilay : Hours in a Library, Series II.) and Mr. J. Cotter 
M orison {Macaulay : English Men of Letters^. The critical stand- 
ards of the two generations are different ; the present demands more 



Macatday 211 

analysis and exposition than the generation of Macaulay. The 
point of view of the author is a consideration always to be made ; 
it is very obvious in Froude and Stevenson, but in the selections 
from those two authors it is of less importance : Froude is ob- 
viously writing as a Protestant Englishman, and Stevenson is deal- 
ing with himself; Mr. Morley, on the other hand, is confessedly in 
the position of an impartial judge. ' 

III. Plan of the Essay. — How the line of thought is developed 
may be seen in the following plans : 

A, The topic forjn (Mr. Morley^s own abstract of the essay 
from the table of contents, Critical Miscellanies^ Vol. I.) is the 
simplest : 

The Life of Macaulay. Not meditative. 

Macaulay's vast popularity. Macaulay's is the prose of spoken de- 
He and Mill, the two masters of the liverance. 

modern journalist. Character of his geniality. 

His marked quality. Metallic hardness and brightness. 

Set his stamp on style. Compared with Carlyle. 

His genius for narration. Harsh modulations and shallow ca- 
His copiousness of illustration. dences. 

Macaulay's, the style of literary knowl- Compared with Burke. 

edge. Or with Southey. 

His use of generous commonplace. Faults of intellectual conscience. 

Perfect accord with his audience. Vulgarity of thought. 

Dislike of analysis. Conclusion. 

The foregoing plan indicates only to a very limited degree the 
structure of the essay. The topics stand by themselves and do not 
fall into groups. Consequently, the summary is useful as a table of 
contents ; it names a few ideas in the essay, but does not show their 
connection with each other. In general, such a table is more useful 
to a writer or a speaker than to a reader, since it furnishes the 
former with an outline of thoughts already in mind ; to the latter it 
may or may not stand for anything. What the line of thought is, 
the following analysis shows more clearly. 

B. Paragraph sitvmiary of the essay : 

I. It is well, before we enter into an examination of the Life of 
Macaulay, to determine for ourselves what kind of significance or 
value belongs to his work. 

II. Macaulay is among the first few English writers in popularity. 



212 Notes 

III. It is important to distinguish the causes which have given 
Macaulay this popularity. 

IV. To Macaul_ay modern journalists owe most of their faults, as 
to Mill most of their virtues. 

V. Macaulay's own quality was far from that of the men who 
imitated him and was the source of his strength, as was imitation of 
that quality the source of their weakness. 

VI. It is the task of criticism to sum up both a writer's merits 
and defects ; and the analysis shows that Macaulay contributed no 
new ideas to our stock, but set his stamp most fixedly on style. 

VII. He who touches style deeply acquires an influence over the 
methods of thought of a generation. 

VIII. The first secret of Macaulay \s popularity was his genius for 
narration — this always of a wholesome kind. 

IX. He had the quality of telling a story in a very straightforward 
and unmistakable way. 

X. He had something to say about nearly all the important 
people and events in history. 

XI. He gave the awakening middle class of England the kind of 
information it wanted — on historical, literary, and philosophical 
themes. 

XII. The great literary knowledge displayed in Macaulay's style 
and the spontaneity of its allusions are marvellous, and make it very 
difficult of imitation. 

XIII. Macaulay's great popularity lay in the fact that he dealt 
chiefly with the Commonplace. 

XIV. He dealt bountifully with the fine Commonplaces of freedom 
and love of country. 

XV. He was in exact accord with the feeling of his time ; he had 
few ideas and these he was sure of. 

XVI. He failed to deal with the larger and more suggestive 
Commonplace which would have stimulated the reflective reader. 

XVII. He had not the power of thinking abstractly, and of medi- 
tating on unseen truth. 

XVIII. These qualities are found in his prose style — which 
always says something, and that clearly. 

XIX. His prose has the style of spoken deliverance. 

XX. His prose style, though clear and direct, is too self-confident, 
and is without benignity. 



Macau lay 213 

XXI. His style is too trenchant for fine gradations of thought. 

XXII. His humour is laboured rather than elastic. 

XXIII. His style is hard, bright, glaring, often trivial in its details, 
and is too often made to order. 

XXIV. There was in him no tumult to repress, no reserve of 
spirit ; to him life was a plain affair. 

XXV. A comparison between him and the genuine masters of 
English prose shows how this lack of reserve deprived his style of 
deeper charm. 

XXVI. A comparison between him and one of his contemporaries, 
Southey, shows how poor is the sound of his prose. 

XXVII. He pursued effect so hotly that he often became vulgar, 
coarse, rude, even mean and ignoble. 

XXVIII. The same pursuit made him unscientific and untrue. 

XXIX. To sum up, Macaulay was wanting in that he failed to 
do more than invest passing fact with an unreal glory, and in that 
he suggested no problem for the future. 

The foregoing paragraph summary, as has been said, shows the 
main idea of each paragraph devoid of its ornament and emphasis, 
and it points out the line of thought in a general way. On the 
other hand, it shows neither the structural relation that the ideas 
bear to one another, nor the proportions of the ideas. These two 
points are brought out in the following plan. 

C, Skeleton of the Essay : — [Note. The so-called skeleton which 
follows attempts, so far as possible, to keep the headings of the par- 
agraph summary. Hence only the main ideas are presented, and 
all details and illustrations which go to support the conclusion are 
omitted, unless they are too important — as is the case in the last 
five paragraphs — to be suppressed. The process of treatment here 
adopted is twofold: (i) An expanding and a subdividing in the 
paragraphs which contain the chief propositions of the foregoing 
scheme ; and (2) a setting in of the other paragraphs until each has 
its proper subordination. The attempt has further been made in this 
brief to keep the tone of argument or of exposition as either is the 
more marked in the text. Thus in paragraphs I. -VI I., Mr. Morley 
is careful to support his steps as he goes along, while in paragraphs 
VIII. -XII. he does little more than to state conclusions. Hence, in 
the former set of paragraphs the headings are stated as propositions, 
in the latter as topics ; and the same method has been used through- 



[II.] 

[III.] 


II. 
III. 


[IV.] 


IV. 


[V.] 





214 Notes 

out. In paragraph XXIX. the subdivision is comparatively more 
exhaustive. Section G is placed in brackets since it is introduced, 
arbitrarily, to indicate more clearly the structure.] 

[I.] y^. It is a useful practice for any one before reading a 

new book to jot down his previous ideas on the 
subject. 

B. Such practice can be carried on with special profit 
in regard to Macaulay. 
I. His work can now be examined in a disinter- 
ested spirit. 
He was an author of great popularity. 
He left a decided mark on the thought and 

expression of every person of his time. 
His influence on journalism was especially strong. 
I. To him modern journalists owe almost all 
their vices (as to Mill their virtues). 
a. What in him was a source of strength and 
just power, became mere imitation and 
weakness in his followers. 
[VI.] C In this examination Macaulay's work must be 

summed up very carefully and impartially, with- 
out cavil or carping. 
I. His influence has, in an age of reading, been a 
distinct literary force on the quality of men's 
thought. 
II. His influence on style as a representation of 
thought has been tremendous. 
[VII.] D. The question of style is very important. 

I. In general, new turns of expression may stand 

for new thoughts. 
II. He who influences the style of a generation often 
directs the manner of thinking as well. 
[VIII.] E. The points of excellence in Macaulay's work are 
these : 
I. He had a genius for narration, for telling a tale^ 
a power always attractive to most men. 
I. He had a remarkable grasp of action, move- 
ment, and objective fact. 



Macaulay 



215 



[IX.] 

[X.] 
[XL] 

[XII.] 



[XIIL] 
[XIV.] 

[XV.] 



[XVI.] 
[XVII.] 



[XIX.] 



[XX.] 

[XXL] 
[XXIL] 

[XXIIL] 



2. He could tell a tale with remarkable direct- 
ness — though he often set forth unim- 
portant details. 
II. He had something definite and pointed to say about 
nearly all the important personages of history. 
I. He came upon the world of letters just as 
the middle classes were beginning to read 
widely, and his Essays were a varied and vol- 
uminous storehouse of knowledge for them. 
III. His knowledge was accurate, ready, and spon- 
taneous. 
F. The secrets of Macaulay 's popularity were these : 
I. He dealt chiefly with the Commonplace. 
II. He dealt especially with the noble Commonplaces 

of freedom and love of country. 
III. He was in exact accord with the common senti- 
ment of the day, never rose above it except in 
degree, and always expressed it. 
\G. From these habits of mind arose his defects :] 
I. 



II. 



He failed to reflect the more generous Common- 
places, and to suggest spiritual problems. 

With all his trenchancy he had not the power of 
abstract thinking or the habit of meditation, 
necessary to all great work. 
[XVIIL] III. His style, which reproduces the habits of his 
mind, his strength, manliness, directness, and 
clearness, reflects in its form these bad quali- 
ties also. 



1. It rests on a fundamental misconception — 

that written prose should reproduce the 
measures of spoken prose. 

2. It has little grace, harmony, or benignity, 

and is superficial. 

3. It is too unqualified, too certain. 

4. It has no abandon. 

5. It is harsh and inelastic. 

6. It is merely a literary instrument, and, as 

such, fails to suggest any reserve power in 
the writer. 



2l6 



Notes 



I 



7. It often deals with trivial details. 

8- It is often merely the literary picturesque 

made to order (as is seen by comparing it 

with a passage from Carlyle) . 

[XXIV.] 9. It continually sounds the same note — in 

which it reproduces the simple directness 

of Macaulay^s mind. 

[XXV.] IV. These failings appear by comparison of Macaulay 

I. With men of the two preceding centuries, as 

Clarendon and Burke. 

[XXVI.] 2. With contemporary masters of style, as 

S out hey. 

[XXVII.] V. Further, his style as an expression of mind 

shows faults of intellectual conscience, the 
result of his hot pursuit of effect. 

1. Coarseness, as in his dealing with Boswell. 

2. Flat vulgarity, as in his characterization of 

Montesquieu. 

3. Distortion of truth for cheap gaudiness, as in 

his comment on Swift and Stella. 
[XXVIII.] 4. Untruth, as in his criticism of Lucretius. 

[XXIX.] //. On the whole, Macaulay's work has little permanent 
value for readers of to-day. 
I. As a historian, he has small value. 
II. As a man of letters, he failed in that 

1 . He spent his strength on the passing day. 

2. He left untouched the deeper problems which 

have become the familiar tasks of the present 
generation. 

D. Sumifiary : — In brief, the scheme of structure appears to be as 
follows: (i) to show the importance of defining one^s ideas on a 
subject before pursuing it farther (I.) ; (2) to apply this principle to 
Macaulay's literary work by giving the main points of interest in his 
literary life which appeal to the average reader (I.-V.) ; (3) to 
state the importance of the question and the principle on which the 
review is based (VI.) ; (4) to state the main point of the discussion 
(VII.) ; (5) to sum up the good points of Macaulay (VIII -XII.) ; 
(6) to show how the good qualities of his work (XIII. -XV.) led 



Macaulay 217 

(7) to his shortcomings (XVI. and XVII.) and especially to the 
defects of his style (XVIII.-XXVIII.) ; and (8) to sum up the 
main points (XXIX.). 

IV. Questions on the Structure of the Essay. — We have still to 
determine several points in structure. V^e must find out (i) whether 
the structure as outlined in the plans given above meets the con- 
ditions laid down (p. 210) ; (2) whether there are any extraneous 
details and digressions from the line of thought ; (3) in what order 
the thought is presented ; (4) how the paragraphs are made in 
detail ; (5) how they are linked together. These are points of 
structure and, as such, will be brought out by the following notes 
and queries : 

65, I. I. The following schemes show the structure of thought 
in the paragraph, and will serve the student as a model for the 
treatment of other paragraphs : 

It is a good plan to set down your ideas of a book before you 
read it, as did Gibbon and Strafford ; and since a life of 
Macaulay is about to appear, the example may well be fol- 
lowed, especially in view of the fact that the task can now 
be accomplished in a disinterested and critical spirit. 

The same result can also be obtained by the use of a logical brief 
of the ideas, rather more detailed, as follows : 

It is worth while, before examining Mr. Trevelyan^s Life of 
Macaulay, to inquire briefly what significance or value belongs 
to his work. 
I. Such practice is, in general, useful, since : 

I. It helps to give clearness and reality to our acquisitions 
from books, a right place and an independent shape. 
This is shown in 

a. Gibbon's practice ^ and 

b. Strafford's practice. 

II. It is especially suitable to Macaulay, since : 

1. His life is to appear in excellent form, and 

2. We may now, after the lapse of seventeen years, think 

of him disinterestedly. 

1 The example does not occur in the article in the Fortnightly Review. 



2i8 Notes 

65, I. — 66, 3. What is the structural value of the position of the 
examples from Gibbon and Strafford ? Why are they placed at the 
beginning? — 66, 3-5. What is the relation of the first member ol 
the sentence to the preceding sentences? — 66, 7. In a word, what 
does the phrase, ''At this moment," point out in regard to the 
structure of the paragraph? — 66, 13-19. Do you see any reason for 
the placing of the main sentence at this point in the paragraph rather 
than at the beginning? — 66, 15. How do the words, " on Strafford's 
plan," bind the first and the last of the paragraph together? 

67, II. 1-3. What is the value of the opening sentence? How 
does the paragraph structure differ from that of I.? Analyze the 
progression of thought in the paragraph . — 68, 5-7. What does the 
closing sentence tell you about the purpose of the paragraph ? 

68, III. 8-12. What relation does the opening sentence bear to 
the rest of the paragraph? — 68, 9. What is the value of the word 
"this"? — 68, 12-14. Explain how the sentence is related to the 
preceding sentence and to the following. What would be the gain 
or loss in striking it out? — 68, 14-17. If the third sentence con- 
tains the topic of the paragraph, what gain to the ideas comes from 
the following sentences? How does the sentence bear on para- 
graph I . ? 

69, IV. 7. The paragraph structure is interesting. Starting with 
the assertion that to Macaulay and Mill the present generation of 
journalists owes most of its traits, and giving the reason for ex- 
cluding such a man as Carlyle, the paragraph goes on to state the 
points of similarity between Macaulay and Mill (sentences 3 and 

4) as a prelude to a statement (specifically introduced by sentence 

5) of the great difference in their influence. Does the paragraph 
seem to help the reader to a clearer understanding of the former 
paragraph ? 

70, V. 8. Do you find any one sentence which seems to contain 
the gist of the paragraph ? How is the paragraph connected with 
IV.? What is the use of V. as related to IV.? Does Mr. Morley 
seem to be feeling his way here by suggesting a number of things 
about Macaulay? 

71, VI. 24. A note on the function of paragraph VI. is perhaps 
worth while. The paragraph introduces a new element in the dis- 
cussion. After stating, in a general wa}^, the bad effects of Macau- 
lay's influence (IV.) and tracing these to his strength of mind (V.), 



Macaulay 219 

Mr. Morley turns to the immediate issue — which is to examine 
more exactly and in an impartial spirit the good and the bad effects 
of Macaulay's work. The insistence on this careful examination is 
very necessary; for it is the crucial point of the essay — to con- 
vince the reader that the examination must be made, and made in 
a spirit of fairness. Hence the length and explicitness of the par- 
agraph. The topic is contained in the first sentence, but is got at 
only after a long subordinate clause, which sums up the preceding 
paragraph and introduces other contingencies. Does the paragraph 
throw any light on the structural value of the preceding digres- 
sions? — 72, 8. What is the value of the emphatic short sentence? 
{Cf. Rhetoric,^. 156.) — 73,4. Analyse the structural function of 
" Now " in relation to the follovv^ing sentences. How about " But " 

(20)? 

74, Vn. I . What is the function of the paragraph ? Does it state 
the specific issue of the essay? — Should you say that the first seven 
paragraphs of the essay form the introduction ? 

75, VIII. 9. Do you notice any general change in the structure of 
the paragraph (and the following four paragraphs) from the type 
of the foregoing? Is the substance stated more or less emphati- 
cally, directly, and with more or fewer supporting reasons? Can 
you account for the change, if any? Does the opening sentence 
tell anything about any of the following paragraphs ? 

76, IX. 17. Compare the structure of this paragraph with that of 
paragraph II. How does the structure differ from that of VIII.? 

77, X. 16. The comparative conciseness of the paragraph and 
the precise introduction are to be noted. "Another reason" intro- 
duces the topic at once. Does the difference in manner between 
this and the preceding paragraph signify anything? 

78, XI. I. How is the paragraph connected with the preceding? 
Does the paragraph really add anything to the preceding? Do you 
notice any change in the point of view, or in the method? 

79, XII. 18. What is the topic-sentence of the paragraph? Do 
the opening sentences mislead you in regard to the main idea of the 
paragraph ? Can you account for the obvious difference in method 
between this and the preceding paragraph ? 

80, XIII. 10. What does a comparison of the paragraph with par- 
agraphs VI. and IX. show with regard to the structure? Which 
is the topic-sentence? Does the long digression seem necessary? 



220 Notes 

{Cf. VI.) At this point in the essay do you note any change in the 
point of view? Why does the discussion of the Commonplace seem 
necessary here? 

82, XIV. 8-10. How does the opening sentence connect XIII. 
and XIV. ? — 82, 1 1 . What is the force of '' yet " in the structure of 
the paragraph? Have you noticed similar structure in any para- 
graph? (C/. VI., XV.) — 84, 7-14. What is the function, in the 
paragraph, of the closing sentence? 

84, XV. 15. The sti*uctural effect of the paragraph is worth not- 
ing, though part of the total effect is undoubtedly due to style. 
Starting with the general assertion that Macaulay "was in exact 
accord with the common average sentiment of his time," the para- 
graph goes on by a series of contrasts to look at his mind from two 
points of view. For example, sentence 2 is in direct contrast to 
sentence i ; " he was '' — "• was not '' is the order. So, too, the 
halves of sentence 3 are opposites of each other ; and the opposition 
of sentence to sentence is carried out in the paragraph. How does 
all this lead into the next paragraph ? Is the paragraph emphasis 
plainly indicated ? 

86, XVI. 3. Show how in the paragraph the good points of 
Macaulay are converted into the bad. — 86, 7. What is the structural 
value of "and"? — 86, 13. Of ^^yet"? — 86, 20— 87, 9. What part 
do the following sentences play in the paragraph, and in the group 
of paragraphs? 

87, XVII. 10. The closeness of the connection in thought and 
phrase between this and the preceding paragraph should be noted. 
Point out the words which make the connection. {Cf. Rhetoric^ 
p. 175, v.). Do you notice any similarity between the opening 
clause of this paragraph, and that of XVI . ? 

88, XVIII. I. To how many paragraphs do the words " and this " 
refer? — 88, 1-3. Does the sentence anticipate a long discussion of 
style ? If so, do you notice in the arrangement of ideas in the group 
of paragraphs any similarity to that of the whole essay up to this 
point? Specifically, from w^hat point of view does the paragraph 
look at Macaulay? 

89, XIX. 3. What peculiarities, if any, do you note in the transi- 
tion of this paragraph as compared with the three preceding? Is 
the purpose of the following digression (7 — 90, 8) clear? What do 
you regard as the chief sentence of the paragraph ? How, from the 



Macatilay 221 

point of view of clearness {cf. Rhetoric^ pp. 187-197), does the 
arrangement of the paragraph strike you ? 

90, XX. 23. What does " yet " indicate with regard to the structure 
of the paragraph? What is the structural value of "And" (23 and 
28) at the beginning of the two following sentences? Do these 
connectives make the ideas more emphatic as well as more coherent? 

91, XXI. 12. From the same point of view, note the function of 
"except." Have you observed many other examples of the same 
sort of antithesis, represented by the formula, // is . . , but . . . 
(C/*. 86, 13.) — 91, 15. Note how the phrase, "To such persons," 
so to speak, dovetails {cf. Rhetoric^ p. 175, V.) the sentence with 
the preceding. Should you say that there are many examples of 
the same sort in the essay? 

92, XXII. 5-9. Has this direct, emphatic way of putting things 
any structural significance? {Cf, Rhetoric, p. 156, 5, (3).) 

93, XXIII. 23. Compare, from the point of view of structure, 
"But" and the sentence which it introduces with other paragraphs. 
Note, also, the shortness of the sentence. — 95, 23. "The most 
imaginative piece," etc. What would have been the effect of an 
illustration from Macaulay? Would it have held back the reader, 
or have aided him ? 

96, XXIV. 16. Note how " But" reduces Macaulay from the first 
rank as a rhetorician, just as the word in the preceding paragraph 
(93, 23) lowered him from the position of an imaginative writer to 
that of a rhetorician. 

97, XXV. 14-18. The form of transition is, to a degree, typical 
of the essay : the first looks back to the preceding paragraph ; the 
second states the topic. 

101, XXVII. 15. Between this paragraph and the preceding stood 
in the essay, as originally printed in the Fortnightly Review, the 
following paragraph. Does it make the connection of thought 
clearer? 

"With this exquisite modulation still delighting the ear, we open 
Macaulay's Essays and stumble on such sentences as this : ^ That 
Tickell should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly 
improbablco That Addison should have been guilty of a villany 
seems to us highly improbable. But that these two men should 
have conspired together to commit a villany seems to us improbable 
in a tenfold degree.' 'O /xtapov, Kat Trafx/JiLapov, kol /xta/ocurara]/ ! 



222 Notes 

Surely this is the very burlesque and travesty of a style. Yet it is a 
characteristic passage. It would be easy to find a thousand ex- 
amples of the same vicious workmanship, and it would be difficult 
to find a page in which these cut and disjointed sentences are not 
the type and mode of the prevailing rhythm." 

101, 19. What effect is produced by the short second sentence 
coming after the long first sentence? (^Cf. XXIII.) — 102,9-16. 
Is the definition of "vulgar" necessary in making clear or emphatic 
the line of thought ? If so, why ? 

104, XXVIII. 20. Why is a more explicit and less roundabout 
introduction, as in XXVII., unnecessary here? 

105, XXIX. 9. Does the last paragraph stand apart by itself? 
Would it be clear without the preceding paragraph ? State specifi- 
cally, as in I., its connection with the preceding line of thought. 
Does it add new ideas, or look at Macaulay from a new point of 
view ? 

V. Summary. — The answers to the preceding questions may be 
summed up by the answers to the following more general questions : 

1 . Can you make any general division of the essay into introduc- 
tion, body of the work, and conclusion? Indicate the divisions. 

2. In the introduction what are the main points brought out? 
Do they bear directly on what follows? Are there any digressions? 

3. Can you distinguish groups of thought in the body of the 
essay? Are these groups clearly related? Do you notice any repe- 
tition of the points made in the introduction? If so, can you account 
for these from the point of view of the general purpose of the essay 

(II. 2)? 

4. Does the conclusion sum up the essay? Are any new points 
brought out either directly or by suggestion ? 

5. Does the paragraph structure point out anything in regard to 
the structure of the thought as a whole? Are the paragraphs closely 
related or isolated? Do you recognize prevailing paragraph types, 
such, for example, as the " balanced " or " antithetical " type or the 
so-called " deductive " or " loose " type, which states the main idea 
first and proceeds to the amplification? Is the same structure 
noticeable, on the one hand, in the sentences ; on the other, in the 
whole composition? 

VI. General Suggestions for Study. — The object of the foregoing 
study is to give a student a better grip of the kind of writing which 



On the Study of Celtic Literature 223 

the essay represents, to see how such essays are made up, to distin- 
guish essentials from minor points. To gain a wider knowledge of 
the structure of essays, a student would do well to compare with Mr. 
Morley's essay, Walter Bagehot's review of the History {Literary 
Studies^ Vol. II.), and Mr. Leslie Stephen's rather more philosophi- 
cal essay on the same author {Hours in a Library^ Vol. II.). A 
more extended study of structure of this sort, with special reference 
to the point of view, can profitably be made by comparing the essays 
on Wordsworth by Mr. Morley {Studies in Literature)^ Walter 
Bagehot {Literary Studies^ Vol. II.), Professor Edward Dowden 
{Studies in Literature)^ Matthew Arnold {Essays in Criticis7n, 
Second Series), Walter Pater {Appreciations)^ and Frederick W. 
Robertson {I^ectures and Addresses on Literary and Social Topics). 
In all these, and especially in the two last-named, the points of view 
are quite different from one another, and the audiences, imaginary 
or real, are entirely unlike. For general questions on the structure 
of such essays, see page 241 at the end of these notes. 



Macatilay 259 



III. MACAULAY 

I. Purpose of the Style. — We have seen (p. 210) the circum- 
stances under which Mr. Morley wrote the present essay, and the 
audience, the public, whom he addressed ; and we have seen how, 
by means of his structure, he tried to make his line of thought clear, 
and to force his meaning home. We may accordingly regard the 
present essay as addressed to a rather better defined public than 
either of the two preceding. Our task is, then, chiefly to see how 
Mr. Morley handles the technique of style in order to make his 
ideas forcible and interesting to his readers. 

II. Technique of the Style. — A. Words. — The copiousness and 
range of Mr. Morley's vocabulary are obviously the qualities which 
first strike the reader. One must, from the outset, be sensible of 
the number of the words, the fulness of the diction, and the readi- 
ness with which it is applied. Specific instances to prove this need 
not be cited ; it is enough to say that the author rarely uses the 
same word, aside from the auxiliaries and connectives, twice on 
a page. These qualities keep the essay from becoming dull and 
tiresome, but they demand more minute analysis. We shall find, 
then, that the principal sources of power in the vocabulary are 
reducible to the following five heads, which are arranged in order 
of importance: (i) the splitting of an idea into certain component 
parts with as much specificness of treatment as the general nature 
of the essay will allow — in other words, the quasi-descriptive 
colouring given to an idea ; (2) figures of speech and illustration ; 
(3) the large number of paired words ; (4) the accuracy of use and 
double value of words; (5) quotation. Certain of these good 
qualities are not infrequently pushed to excess and detract from the 
permanent value of the style. 

I. Throughout the essay the amplification by the specifying of 
several ideas instead of one more general idea is evident. Thus at 
the start we are told not that Strafford would formulate some notion 
" of the ideas that he already had on the subject of the book,'' etc., 
but that " he would call for a sheet of paper, and then proceed to 
write down upon it some sketch of the ideas ..." (65, 12); and 
66, 10-13, is another example in point. So, too, w^e are told to " ask 
ourselves " not what place Macaulay has in English literature, but 



26o Notes 

" to what place he has a claim among the forces of English litera- 
ture" (66j 1 8). Better examples are 69, 3-6; 82, 2-5 ; 83, 22-27; 
87, 14-25. A student should look with care through the essay to 
note the number and variety of such phrases. Do they, in general, 
seem to add to the picturesqueness of the essay and hence to its 
fores? Compare the effect with a similar one in Froude. Are there 
noticeable also, as closely akin in eifect to these longer quotations, 
many instances of single specific words ? Compare, in the passage 
last referred to, "blue foolscap/' "periods," "'sentences," " phrases," 
and the single word metaphors, " buried," " scouring," " dashing," 
" barbing " ; and in general, such phrases as " the ninety volumes of 
Voltaire" (67, 18), "threshold" (68, 3), "the four magic strings" 
(96,29). 

2. It is hard in many of the foregoing cases to distinguish the 
line at which literal specificness passes over into the region of tropes. 
The figures of speech and the companion illustrations in the essay 
are very abundant. To take of this class the phenomena which we 
first meet — illustration. At the very start it is seen in the quota- 
tion from Gibbon and the example of Strafford ; the position is 
seductive. More striking, perhaps the most striking illustration in 
the entire essay, is the " imaginary case of banishment to a desert 
island" (67, 4), and the following out of that to the bottom of the 
page, and its continuation in the experience of the Australian 
traveller. Other good examples — they are too long to quote — are 
83, 18-22 ; 84, 4-7 ; 85, 16-20. It is important to determine what 
part these play in the essay. Are they necessary for clearness or 
are they used entirely for force? 

The figures of speech proper are obviously very numerous. These 
may be roughly divided into two classes — the long-sustained meta- 
phors and similes, and the short single-word metaphors. A good 
example of the first sort is, " with as few notes in his register, to 
borrow a phrase from the language of vocal compass, as there are few 
notes, though they are very loud, in the register of his written prose " 
(85, 9), and other cases are 77, 25-30; 84, 7-14; 87, 25-30; 96, 
25-30; 106, i-io. Examples of the simple, short metaphors are 
"refreshment" (67, 7), "tempered phrases" (71, 15), "distinct 
literary force" (72, 10), "shining words and many-coloured com- 
plexities" (78, 10), "the poise of truth" (91, 13), "scolding pre- 
cision" (93, 10), "stamping emphasis" (100, 12); and there are 



Macau lay 261 

many others which the student should look for. The number of 
these is very large ; to gain some idea of their significance one or 
two questions may be asked. Do you notice in the course of the 
essay any increase in the number of metaphors, both long and short? 
Do the longer figures seem to be used to render a passage clear, or 
for the sake of force? Is the same observation true of. the shorter 
figures? Do any of the metaphors seem old, worn, and, so to speak, 
crystallized? Does the effect of the metaphors on the style of the 
whole essay come the more from the vividness of individual words 
or from the large number? Do you notice, as in XXIII., any super- 
fluity of figurative language, or any incongruity in the imagery? 
Has Mr. Morley, to use his own words, been " betrayed into " too 
many phrases " of happy improvisation " ? Compare, from the same 
point of view, the following passage from the same pen : 

"... Robespierre's style had no richness either of feeling or of 
phrase ; no fervid originality, no happy violences. If we turn from 
a page of Rousseau to a page of Robespierre, we feel that the disci- 
ple has none of the thrilling sonorousness of the master ; the glow 
and the ardour have become metallic ; the long-drawn plangency is 
parodied by shrill notes of splenetic complaint. The rhythm has 
no broad wings ; the phrases have no quality of radiance ; the ora- 
torical glimpses never lift the spirit into new worlds. We are never 
conscious of those great pulses of strong emotion that shake and 
vibrate through the nobly measured periods of Cicero or Bossuet or 
Burke. . . ." — Robespierre {Critical Miscellanies ^\.^. ^^^, 

3. We have previously seen (p. 255), in dealing with Stevenson's 
style, the effect of the pairing of words. The same practice is to be 
seen here: "clearness and reality" (66, 6), "a right place and an 
independent shape " (7), "significance or value " (16), "a depressed 
and dolorous spirit" (67, 14), "power and vigour" (70, 18), "unc- 
tion and edification" (71, 21), and many others, are cases where 
one word might have answered the purposes. It is obvious that the 
doubling of words greatly increases the size of the vocabulary. In 
the present essay, however, is this doubling less characteristic than 
with Stevenson? In other words, when three or four words are 
used, are you sensible of any great departure from the prevailing 
"type and mould" of diction ? Is the effect produced by pairing 
in any way similar to that of the phenomena which we have ob- 
served under i (p. 259) ? 



262 Notes 

4. What has been said under the three foregoing heads may 
prejudice a reader in the belief that Mr. Morley uses words with 
readiness and haste rather than accuracy, and such words as " cher- 
ished and held" (86, i), "^^size" (13), ^^perspective," "momentum" 
and "edification" (14) may confirm that opinion. Yet the words 
are often chosen with a sense for value and are more than mere 
conventions; "momentous" (67, 9), "substantive and organic" 
(70, 14), "accident" (71,9), "assiduous" (26), "essentially" (91,8), 
are cases in point. In each case, what is the exact force of the word ? 

5. It is hardly necessary to call attention specifically to the 
amount of direct quotation which Mr. Morley employs. We have 
seen the same phenomenon in Froude. Under this head, however, 
is included those unacknowledged quotations, — characteristic, as 
we shall see later on, of Mr. Ruskin's style, — which are really 
common property. Compare with "thrice and four times enviable 
panegyric" (73, 10) the lines from Macaulay's Horatius^ 

" And thrice and four times tugged amain 
Ere he wrenched out the steel," 

and with "dreamt of in his professed philosophy" (81, 10), Hamlet 
I. V. 167 (Globe Edition). The fact that Mr. Morley takes from 
Macaulay's History a long passage has already been referred to (83, 
footnote 11). As usual, the point to determine is this: — What 
effect have these passages, and passages such as these, on the vivid- 
ness and picturesqueness of the style ? Are they likely to catch a 
reader^s attention ? 

A word must be added in regard to some of the defects of Mr. 
Morley's vocabulary. These defects spring out of the good qualities 
and are the excess of them. Thus, as we have seen, the copious- 
ness and fluency of the figurative language is often too exuberant, 
often degenerates into mixed metaphor. Less conspicuous, but 
still evident, are other defects which we have touched on, (i) the 
lack of simplicity and the consequent obscurity, (2) some redun- 
dancy, and (3) a good deal of stereotyping of phrase. These defects 
need not, however, be analyzed in detail ; for the purpose here has 
been to see how Mr. Morley gains the very evident effect which he 
produces — the power to hold a reader and to ward off tediousness — 
and this, as we have seen, is, in a large measure, due to the range, 
variety, spontaneity, and allusiveness of his vocabulary. 



Macaulay 263 

B. Sentences. — The sentences are of less significance than the 
words, but several points need to be noted. Comparing them with 
those of Froude and Stevenson, one feels the fulness of the word- 
ing ; and as a matter of fact the average length of sentence is nine 
or ten words greater than in either of the preceding essays (34.68 
as against 24.58 and 25.28, respectively). This greater length 
arises, no doubt, from the large number of doubled and parallel 
words ; but it is sometimes due to pleonasm pure and simple. An 
example of this is the second sentence (QS, 11), which could have 
been shortened by twenty-three words, with little loss to the mean- 
ing, as follows : " [It is also told of] Strafford [that] before reading 
any book [for the first time, he] would [call for a sheet of paper, 
and then proceed to] write down [upon it] some sketch of the ideas 
that he already had upon the subject of the book, and of the 
questions that he expected to find answered." The pleonasm, in 
this instance, may be warranted on the ground of picturesqueness, 
which, we have seen, is one of Mr. Morley's aims. Can it also be 
explained by the desire on Mr. Morley's part to lead on his reader, 
by a leisurely opening, to the more important parts of the essay ? 
In determining this point, is the fact that the average sentence 
length (51.66) of the paragraph is greater than that in any para- 
graphs, except XVII. (61) and XXVI. (54.44), in any way signifi- 
cant? Are any other cases of redundancy to be explained on 
similar grounds? 

Keeping closely, however, to the purpose of our examination of 
the sentences — their effect in warding off tediousness and mo- 
notony — we may pursue the analysis under four heads: (i) the 
variety in form of the sentences ; (2) their balance ; (3) the swing 
and cadence; and (4) the compactness and emphasis. 

1. The variety is obvious. In dealing with Froude and Stevenson, 
we have seen a recurring simplicity and similarity in sentence 
structure, but such is not the case here. This variety may be 
brought out by the following questions : Are there, on any one 
page, two sentences, with the exception of such simple sentences as 
92, 8, 9, which are built on the same plan? Can you say, as was 
possible with Froude and Stevenson, that there is a prevailing type 
of sentence ? 

2. The number of balanced sentences {cf. Rhetoric^ pp. 108, 109) 
is large. We have seen in the structure of the essay {cf. p. 221, 



264 



Notes 



note to 91, XXL, 12) that Mr. Morley frequently moves his para- 
graphs by a series of antitheses ; and the pairing of words hints at a 
pleasure, on his part, in parallels and contrasts. Examples of the bal- 
anced sentences are 66, 3 ; 67, 9, 14 ; 68, 12 ; 72, 25, 29 ; and 78, 19 ; 
and 69, 24, may be taken as an illustration for analysis. There are 
three parallel members each beginning with " if." In each of these 
Mill is placed in antithesis with Macaulay, who, being for the 
present purpose the more important man, is put in the main clause. 
The balance of word with word may be thus pointed out : 



. 


First clause — Mill 


Second clause — Macaulay 




{subordinate) 






{principal) 


I. 

2. 


taught 
some of them 




I'. 

1' . 


tempted 
more of them 


3' 


reason 




y. 


declaim 


. I. 


Set an example 




I^ 


did much to encourage 


2. 


(patience \ 
\ tolerance S 




1'. 


oracular arrogance 


3. 


fair examination of 


y- 


a rather too thrasonical 




hostile opinions 




complacency 


. I. 


sowed ideas of 




I'. 


trained a taste for 


2. 
3- 

4- 


great economic' 
political 

moral 


bearings 
of the 

forces of 
society. 


2'. 

3'- 
4^ 


superficial particularities 
trivial circumstantialities 

of local colour 
all the paraphernalia of 

the pseudo-picturesque 



The example is rather exceptional ; but the points to be deter- 
mined by the student are how far the instance is in keeping with 
the style of the rest of the paragraph and the essay as a whole, and 
how the sentence is so varied as to keep the antitheses from 
edginess and monotony. 

3. The subject-matter of XXV. and the quotations from Claren- 
don and Burke and that from Southey in the following paragraph 
suggest an inquiry into the rhythm and harmony of Mr. Morley's 
sentences. If we examine the three passages referred to, — and 
Mr. Morley has aptly chosen them to illustrate the principle on 



Macaulay 265 

which he is insisting, — we shall find that the beauty of sound of 
Clarendon's prose comes, roughly speaking, from recurring pairs of 
harmonious words, each pair of which is usually preceded by an ad- 
jective and followed by a noun with "of" or "to," e.g. "of that 
primitive simplicity and integrity of life " (98, 2) ; that from Burke 
on parallel phrases and sentences of varying length ; that from 
Southey on the doubling and the parallelism both, to say nothing 
of the recurrence of the same sound. It is worth while to see if the 
ready and frequent doubling of phrases in the present essay — that 
characteristic trick — give like effects. Almost any paragraph is 
good as an example, but in XIV. the swing of the sentence is par- 
ticularly noticeable. The most ready test to apply is to read a few 
sentences aloud to note whether they read with smoothness and 
variety. Another test is to destroy the pairing of the words to 
ascertain if the passages sound so smoothly as at present. 

4. Lastly, in regard to the emphasis of the sentences {cf. Rhetoric^ 
pp. 139-142), the student should note whether the words at the 
beginning and the end of each sentence serve not only to show the 
connection of thought, but also to throw the idea into sharp relief. 
Take 67 as an example : are " That Macaulay comes " (i), " is quite 
certain" (3), "whom" (8), "momentous post" (9), "clearly" (9), 
"Englishmen" (14), "Germans" (16), "a sensible Frenchman" 
(17), "Shakespeare" (16), "Goethe" (17), "Voltaire" (18), "two 
authors" (21), "popular preference" (22), the important words? 
Should not "the object of a second choice " (19) be exhumed from 
the middle of the sentence ? Or, again, spread out such a sentence 
as 66, 19-23, into four simple declarative sentences, and note the 
loss to compactness and proportion. Note, too, in the last exam- 
ple, the emphasis of the clause " It is seventeen years since he 
died." What would have been the effect had the clause been made 
subordinate with, say, " since " ? The student should examine other 
parts of the essay from this point of view. 

III. Summary and Suggestions. — A student might do well to 
test some of these results by process of figuring, to ascertain with 
juster sense the proportion which each of these causes bears to the 
result. Again, some of the defects of the style, which lie apart from 
the purpose of the present analysis, ought to be looked into to aid 
in determining questions as to the uses and limitations of such 
a style as Mr. Morley's, its fitness for certain conditions and kinds 



2(>6 Notes 

of material. Moreover, the fact that Mr. Morley, using for the 
whole essay an average of 27.02 per cent of foreign words (not 
including proper names and quotation), runs with some uniformity 
from 21.12 in I. to 33.78 in XX. and back to 26.40 in XXIX. 
might show an interesting fact with regard to Mr. Morley's men- 
tal and stylistic stride as he warms up to his work. These, how- 
ever, are suggestions for an advanced student ; for the beginner the 
object is, through a rough and not too minute analysis, to develop 
a feeling for style. 



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